The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign by Joseph A. Altsheler (portable ebook reader txt) 📗

Yet the condition of his army would have appalled a weaker will. It had been driven back three miles. His whole camp had been taken. His second line also had been driven in. Many thousands of men had fallen and other thousands had been taken. Thirty of his cannon were in the hands of the enemy, and although noon had now come and gone there was no sound to betoken the coming of the troops led by Wallace or Nelson. Well might Grant's own stout heart have shrunk appalled from the task before him.

Wallace was held back by confused orders, pardonable at such a time. The eager Nelson was detained at Savannah by Buell, who thought that the sounds of the engagement they heard in the Shiloh woods was a minor affair, and who wanted Nelson to wait for boats to take him there.

It seemed sometimes to Dick long afterward, when the whole of the great Shiloh battle became clear, that Fortune was merely playing a game of chess, with the earth as a board, and the armies as pawns. Grant's army was ambushed with its general absent. The other armies which were almost at hand were delayed for one reason or another. While as for the South, the genius that had planned the attack and that had carried it forward was quenched in death, when victory was at its height.

But for the present the lad had little time for such thoughts as these. The success of Sherman in holding the new position infused new courage into him and those around him. The men in gray, wearied with their immense exertions, and having suffered frightful losses themselves, abated somewhat the energy and fierceness of their attack.

The dissolved Northern regiments had time to reform. Grant seized a new position along a line of hills, in front of which ran a deep ravine filled with brushwood. He and his officers appreciated the advantage and they massed the troops there as fast as they could.

Now Fortune, after having brought Grant to the verge of the pit, was disposed to throw chances in his way. The hills and the ravine were one. Another, and most important it was, was the presence of guns of the heaviest calibre landed some days ago from the fleet, and left there until their disposition could be determined. A quick-witted colonel, Webster by name, gathered up all the gunners who had lost their own guns and who had been driven back in the retreat, and manned this great battery of siege guns, just as the Southern generals were preparing to break down the last stand of the North.

Meanwhile, a terrible rumor had been spreading in the ranks of the Southern troops. The word was passed from soldier to soldier that their commander, Johnston, whom they had believed invincible, had been killed, and they did not trust so much Beauregard, who was left in command, nor those who helped. Their fiery spirit abated somewhat. There was no decrease of courage, but continuous victory did not seem so easy now.

Confusion invaded the triumphant army also. Beauregard had divided the leadership on the field among three of his lieutenants. Hardee now urged on the center, Bragg commanded the right, and Polk, the bishop-general, led the left. It was Bragg's division that was about to charge the great battery of siege guns that the alert Webster had manned so quickly. Five minutes more and Webster would have been too late. Here again were the fortunes of Grant brought to the very verge of the pit. The Northern gunboats at the mouth of Lick Creek moved forward a little, and their guns were ready to support the battery.

The Kentucky regiment was wedged in between the battery and a brigade, and it was gasping for breath. Colonel Winchester, slightly wounded in three places, commanded his men to lie down, and they gladly threw themselves upon the earth.

There was a momentary lull in the battle. Wandering winds caught up the banks of smoke and carried most of them away. Dick, as he rose a little, saw the Southern troops massing in the forest for an attack upon their new position. They seemed to be only a few yards away and he clearly observed the officers walking along the front of the lines. It flashed upon him that they must hold these hills or Grant's army would perish. Where was Buell? Why did he not come? If the Southerners destroyed one Northern army today they would destroy another tomorrow! They would break the two halves of the Union force in the west into pieces, first one and then the other.

“What do you see, Dick?” asked Warner, who was lying almost flat upon his face.

“The Confederate army is getting ready to wipe us off the face of the earth! Up with your rifle, George! They'll be upon us in two minutes!”

They heard a sudden shout behind them. It was a glad shout, and well it might be. Nelson, held back by Buell's orders, had listened long to the booming of the cannon off in the direction of Shiloh. Nothing could convince him that a great battle was not going on, and all through the morning he chafed and raged. And as the sound of the cannon grew louder he believed that Grant's army was losing.

Nelson obtained Buell's leave at last to march for Shiloh, but it was a long road across hills and creeks and through swamps. The cannon sank deep in the mire, and then the ardent Nelson left them behind. Now he knew there was great need for haste. The flashing and thundering in front of them showed to the youngest soldier in his command that a great battle was in progress, and that it was going against the North. His division at last reached Pittsburg Landing and was carried across the river in the steamers. One brigade led by Ammen outstripped the rest, and rushed in behind the great battery and to its support, just as the Southern bugles once more sounded the charge.

Dick shouted with joy, too, when he saw the new troops. The next moment the enemy was upon them, charging directly through a frightful discharge from the great guns. The riddled regiments, which had fought so long, gave way before the bayonets, but the fresh troops took their places and poured a terrible fire into the assaulting columns. And the great guns of the battery hurled a new storm of shell and solid shot. The ranks of the Southern troops, worn by a full day of desperate fighting, were broken. They had crossed the ravine into the very mouths of the Northern guns, but now they were driven back into the ravine and across it. Cannon and rifles rained missiles upon them there, and they withdrew into the woods, while for the first time in all that long day a shout of triumph rose from the Union lines.

Another lull came in the battle.

“What are they doing now, Dick?” asked the Vermonter.

“I can't see very well, but they seem to be gathering in the forest for a fresh attack. Do you know, George, that the sun is almost down?”

“It's certainly time. It's been at least a month since the Johnnies ran out of the forest in the dawn, and jumped on us.”

It was true that the day was almost over, although but few had noticed the fact. The east was already darkening, and a rosy glow from the west fell across the torn forest. Here and there a dead tree, set on fire by the shells, burned slowly, little flames creeping along trunk and boughs.

Bragg